Work Text:
"Let's go Babycakes. Show me what you can do."
Spike couldn't stop the affection in his voice; he loved that robot more than half the girls he'd gone out with. Maybe it was because everyone had given up on it until he came along.
~o~
The first time he saw Babycakes was on his tour of HQ after he was accepted into the SRU. Parker had shown him the gear room and explained where and what everything was with the exception of what looked like scrap metal sitting in a corner.
"What is that?" he'd asked, walking over to it.
"It's a robot prototype designed for safe examination of a bomb before anyone tried to defuse it. It never worked very well and our last tech tried to fix it. As you can see, he didn't succeed." Parker explained.
Spike knelt down and gently pulled the dusty pieces out into the light, ignoring the screech of metal. He examined it closely and Parker could practically see the gears moving in his head.
"This would be easy to fix! All your previous guy really did was pull it apart. If I had the right parts and tools, I could probably make some improvements as well."
"How so?" questioned Parker, watching Spike's face closely as he explained. The 'hunk-of-junk', as the men called it, had cost several thousand dollars and he didn't want it more broken than it already was.
"Tell you what. You make it work and then we'll talk improvements."
Spike nodded and hurried purposefully from the room. He returned minutes later with his hands full of tools. He was about to sit down right where he was until Greg stopped him, "Not here buddy. Take it to one of the training rooms."
~o~
3 days later and Spike casually brought up that he had fixed the robot. Naturally, the team had to see for themselves. The robot had a bit of a reputation of being useless and unfixable. 5 minutes later saw them grouped in one of the training rooms, staring at the robot - definitely looking more robot-like than they'd ever seen it. Spike picked up a remote and the bot whirred to life. He tossed a small package to Wordy, "Could you put that somewhere? I had one of the other guys rig it to look like a bomb." Wordy placed the box on the other side of the room and moved with the rest of the group to look over Spike's shoulder at the remote's screen.
As he sent the bot rolling gently forward, Spike began talking, "So Babycakes was relatively easy to fix..."
"Babycakes?" interrupted Ed, smirking.
"Easier than calling it 'the robot' all the time," Spike blushed. "Anyway, once I had repaired it back to its original state, I asked some of the other techies and they pointed me to the old, outdated technology room. I got some of that stuff but it probably won't work too well on some of the newer stuff in bombs but anything older will be fine. Babycakes now has a simple sensor that can tell us what's in the package so we know what we're working with. I've also put in an electronic blocker but that'll need upgrading if it will keep up with technology. I've given it a couple of different ways of handling the 'bomb' including a hook to move it and a water cannon to neutralize it. Here we go."
The robot had long since reached the 'bomb' and the sensor showed a mess of wires, a timer and batteries on the tiny screen attached to the remote. Spike explained each to the team and the significance,
"See, if a bomb only has these components, it's probably safe for one of us to approach or move it, especially if we know when it's set to go off. If it was to be set off by some sort of electronic trigger, like a pager, Babycakes can block it and that will stop it from blowing until we can defuse it."
Spike blushed again as the men applauded him. Parker clapped him on the shoulder, "You've earned your keep. I think I can swing it so you can have all the latest toys for the robot. I have a feeling that this thing will majorly cut down on bomb-related injuries in the SRU."
~o~
Spike smiled fondly at the robot as he powered it up and began to maneuver it out of the truck. "Spike!" squawked a voice over his headset, "Will you get Babycakes over here? One of the dogs found a bomb!" He smirked; the team had protested his nickname for the robot at first but now they didn't even notice using it themselves.